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The BBC is reporting that "US forces in Iraq have released two Iranian diplomats detained in a raid in Baghdad last week. . . The diplomats were handed over to the Iranian embassy in the city on Friday, the IRNA agency said. ... US officials, who announced earlier this week they were holding the men, have made no comment on their release."
Update: From the Post:
And from the LAT: "When the two Iranians were taken into custody, they were at the office of Hadi Amiri, leader of the Badr Brigade Shiite militia, the Iraqi officials said. The office is in the compound of Abdelaziz Hakim, who leads the Badr-affiliated Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. In the raid, the military seized documents, maps, photographs and videos linking the two Iranians to illegal weapons shipments to armed groups in Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said this week." More on the conflicting Iraqi versus American accounts from the NYT.Two senior Iranian operatives who were detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and were strongly suspected of planning attacks against American military forces and Iraqi targets were expelled to Iran on Friday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The decision to free the men was made by the Iraqi government and has angered U.S. military officials who say the operatives were seeking to foment instability here.
"These are really serious people," said one U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They were the target of a very focused raid based on intelligence, and it would be hard for one to believe that their activities weren't endorsed by the Iranian government. It's a situation that is obviously troubling."
One of the commanders, identified by officials simply as Chizari, was the third-highest-ranking official of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds Brigade, the unit most active in aiding, arming and training groups outside Iran, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, U.S. officials said. The other commander was described as equally significant to Iran's support of foreign militaries but not as high-ranking.